workable

Etymology

It is formed from English work + -able.^[2][3][4][5] The verb work continues Old English wyrcan (“to prepare, perform, make, produce by labour”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a material, able to be worked or shaped: 1545, in Roger Ascham's Toxophilus.^[2][6] Etymonline dates the word to the 1540s, "that can be worked or is worth working".^[3]

Semantic evolution

From 1672 it was applied to coal, ore and other minerals that can be mined or quarried at a profit,^[2] and in Northumberland and Durham mining speech a workable seam was one thick enough to be worked at a profit.^[7] Of machines and devices that can be used, it is recorded from 1756, and of people or animals fit for work from 1798.^[2] The sense now most common, of a plan or system that can be put into practice, is recorded from 1822.^[2][4]

Timeline

• 1545 – of a material, able to be worked or shaped.^[2][6]
• 1672 – of coal or ore, able to be mined.^[2]
• 1756 – of a machine or device, usable, functional.^[2]
• 1798 – of a person or animal, fit for work.^[2]
• 1822 – of a plan or system, practicable, feasible.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Able to be put into practice successfully; practicable or feasible: They finally agreed on a workable timetable.^[6][8][2]
2. Able to be worked, shaped or handled, as a material: workable clay.^[6][8][2]
3. Of a mineral deposit, worth mining.^[6][2][7]

Word family

• workability
• workably
• workableness

Related words

• work
• unworkable

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins